One Of Gaming’s Oldest Arguments Was Just Settled For Good

At midnight on August 25, 1997, GoldenEye was released for the Nintendo 64. Five minutes later, the phrase "Oddjob is cheating!" was born.

The developers of GoldenEye had added the classic hat-tossing villain from 1964's Goldfinger as an unlockable character in the multiplayer mode. But due to either a coding error or confusing him with Nick Nack, his character model was so short that every shot fired at him went over his head. This meant that anyone playing as Oddjob was basically a stealth submarine who could pop up from anywhere, instantly wreck you, and disappear without a trace.

So what's the deal? Is playing as Oddjob cheating?

In an interview published earlier this week, the developers of GoldenEye finally gave their verdict on the controversy: Yes, Oddjob is absolutely cheating, and you shouldn't share your Fruit by the Foot or Dunk-a-roos with anyone who uses him. It also turns out that this whole time, the developers knew that Oddjob broke the game's auto-aim mechanism (hence why everyone's bullets missed), but he was just "too much fun to take out," and "there was no impetus ... to change it." That's a neat sentiment, but to the untold hundreds who lost those stupid N64 controllers to unforgiving walls, it's cold comfort.

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